


Pieces

by notabadday



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, idk whether this is happy or sad but i had some post-s1 feels to deal with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1692758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notabadday/pseuds/notabadday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz wakes up. Set after Beginning of the End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces

When Fitz awakens, his eyes blink furiously against the sting of daylight. The room is white. Everything is so white and sterile. It even smells white and sterile. It's empty, too.

 He doesn't know what he's looking for, what he's saying but it feels like something. He persists, muttering incoherently. Once his eyes adjust, they are wide and expectant. He examines the wires coming out of him, the machines and their unreadable monitors, the room itself. It's alien to him, all of it.

 He feels himself beginning to panic, anxiety rising in his chest like water filling up around him. The machines begin to stir, sounding as panicked as he feels. When people come spilling into the room, all marching to their respective positions, it is all of a sudden. Suits and lab coats, a pack of monochrome bodies. They are strangers to him. They seem benign but his anxiety increases, the threat of their scrutiny an unsettling force. Some of them attempt to talk to him with no response. Their words don’t sound like words.

 Then, breaking through a wall of black suits, comes a panting burst of colour. Her pastel pink jumper plays second fiddle to the bright smile she wears as she looks at him. Fitz reflexively returns her grin, the sound of sirens dulling.  "You've been... beside me the whole damn time," he croaks, his voice sounding disoriented and confused.

 "You're my best friend in the world, Fitz,” Jemma replies, the light revealing fallen tears on her cheeks. Moving to stand at his bedside, she attempts to muster some pep for him: “Though you'll have to forgive me that brief toilet break. If I'd known..."

 "Simmons-" Coulson steps forward, reluctantly interrupting with a tone of caution.

 "He's fine. You're fine now, Fitz. It's going to be fine," Jemma insists, forcing that smile of hers to endure. Coulson looks nervously to Fitz.

 "Where... am I?" Fitz's throat sounds drier still as he asks.

 "At a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base. Another one," Jemma tells him, rolling her eyes at the last part. She reaches for the cup of water beside his bed as she continues: "It's okay now. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s back. We've got access to all kinds of rehabilitation facilities too, so you'll be shipshape in no time. Good as new."

 "S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

 "Do you know what S.H.I.E.L.D. is, Agent Fitz?" Coulson asks calmly. He observes Fitz’s reaction to his name and regrets his phrasing. It's a reflex, Agent Fitz.

 "No," Fitz replies, looking from Coulson to Jemma for explanation. He sees the colour leave Jemma's face and feels a stab of guilt. His eyes linger on her before he turns back to Coulson and quietly adds, "Who are you?"

 In the pause that follows his question, Jemma tempers her panic with a sharp intake of breath.

 "I'm Agent Phil Coulson, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. You work for me and, in doing so, you've been through a remarkable ordeal. You're quite the hero, Agent Fitz."

 Fitz's face contorts. "That doesn't sound like me."

 After introducing, or reintroducing, himself, Coulson directs his attention to the other members of his team. "We shouldn't be in here." They obediently follow their boss out of Fitz's room, with Skye turning for one last nervous look at the patient. The doctors filter out soon after.

 "I don't know who I am, do I?" Fitz looks at Jemma, but his eyes are vacant.

 "We're all here to remind you. I think you'll be pretty pleased when you find out. You're not too shabby, you know."

 He looks at her, examining the fragility of her façade. He can’t stand it. He can see the quiver of her bottom lip as she tries to smile for him, and the pang of guilt is inescapable. "I'm sorry."

 "What on earth could you _possibly_ have to be sorry about?" Jemma says, shaking her head incredulously as though it's the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard.

 "I can't remember-" As he begins, she lets out a gasp, suddenly filled with dread at what he's about to tell her.

 She's been assuming. She assumed he would remember _her_. They had permeated each other’s very identity, they’re Fitzsimmons, surely that couldn't change. She had let herself believe that that wouldn’t change. "You can't remember me either." 

"Your name. I know you. But I can't remember your name."

 She breathes deep. Again, she delivers a bright false smile. "Jemma Simmons."

 "Biochem," he adds, instinctively. " _Jemma_."

 "Yeah."

 He continues to watch her, scrutinising the falseness of her happy expression. There’s her quivering bottom lip, the tears she can't conceal, her twitching hands. He wants to give her more, to reassure her. She deserves more.

 "I only have pieces..." Fitz tells her, apologetically.

 "I’m a big fan of every piece of you. Pieces are good. We can work with pieces. We can put them together. Problem-solving is a specialty of ours so..."

 There is a silence.

 "What happened to me?"

 "You drowned, Fitz. We were trapped at the bottom of the ocean. We came up with an escape plan together. But there was only one oxygen mask and you made me take it. You gave it to me. Quite the hero." 

"I couldn't live-" 

"I know," she says, cutting him off. "But, you know, neither could I."

 She holds his gaze for a long time, watching as he processes her statement, hoping that he can. His eyes are less vacant now.

 "So that's kind of how you ended up here."

 "You saved me?"

 "You saved me first," she replies, playfully.

 "Thank you," he tells her sincerely. She simply nods modestly. "Jemma Simmons."

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first AOS fic, and it's a bit of a jump from my usual. I hope you enjoyed it. It's mostly just stream-of-consciousness writing because I don't even know what I want next. I just want Fitz to be okay. ~sigh


End file.
